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Kish Island next up on World Tour

Kish Island welcomes the next stop on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour from February 21 to 24.

Lausanne, Switzerland, February 19, 2018 - Next up on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour is the men's Kish Island 3-star event in Iran from February 21 to 24. Kish Island will host its third World Tour event in as many years at the Kish Marine Recreation Sports Complex.

Latvia's Martins Plavins and Edgars Tocs, who won gold at the Dela Beach Open 4-star tournament in The Hague, Netherlands in January, top the Kish Island main draw entry list on points.

"We had a one-month preparation in Egypt, but we are just halfway there," Plavins said. "After the tournaments in Kish Island, Fort Lauderdale and Doha, we will go back to Egypt and prepare for the rest of the season.

"Our training was very hard and very different from the conditions in The Hague and Czech Republic. It was very windy like here in Kish Island. There were also strong teams there like Samoilovs and Smedins. They were pretty good in the wind and they beat us there. So we are ready to get back our rhythm at this tournament."

Among the leading entries in the tournament are Qatar's Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan, Poland's Marius Prudel and Jakub Szalakiewicz, Indonesia's Ade Rachmawan and Mohammed Ashfiya, and Italy's Alex Ranghieri and Marco Caminati.

"I changed partners and we've been working hard on many details of the game," Ranghieri said. "We are doing our best to treat every tournament like a semifinal. We are still finding our identity on the court. Some things are going to come for sure but we have to feel it first. The level of teams now is so even, so we always have to be aware of the others in every single tournament we are playing in."

Last year, Russia's Nikita Liamin and Vyatcheslav Krasilnikov won the Kish Island title with a 2-1 (18-21, 21-19, 15-8) win over Poland's Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak. The year before that it was Jefferson Pereira and Cherif Younousse of Qatar who claimed gold with a 2-1 (21-13, 14-21, 15-12) victory against Russians Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Artem Yarzutkin in the final.

For information on the tournament, including the entry list, click here.

The Kish Island event will be followed by the first 5-star event of the year, the Fort Lauderdale Major in the United States from February 26 to March 4.